SFSU Public Affairs Press Release

Accounting professor assures his 45-year teaching legacy will live on at SF State

$700,000 gift to enhance the College of Business's ability to attract, retain and develop stellar young faculty members in a tough hiring market

SAN FRANCISCO, June 28, 2001 - Vincent Schaze, a faculty member in accounting who has taught at San Francisco State University for 45 years without missing a single class period, has given the University's College of Business $700,000 to help the college recruit and retain faculty and renovate a conference room.

"Professor Schaze's gift comes at a crucial time for the college," said College of Business Dean Ray Maghroori. "The high cost of living has made recruiting qualified business faculty quite difficult for many Bay Area universities and San Francisco State is no exception."

Maghroori said that most of the gift will go into an endowment for faculty recruitment and retention. Some of the funds, however, will be immediately put to use over the next couple of years to augment salaries for new faculty, who will be known as Schaze Fellows and will receive grants for a period of two to three years.

"I am both pleased and honored to be able to help in this way," said Professor Schaze. "An endowment to the University for the benefit of new professors and to provide a conference room for the faculty is a great way to advance higher education in the community."

In his long career at SF State, Professor Schaze has shown an extraordinary commitment to teaching, mentoring many students over the years. Although Schaze has opted to take part in the University's early retirement program, he continues to teach two

or three classes each semester, and since he has never taken a sabbatical, with the end of the spring term, he brought his total to 90 semesters of classes (not including summer sessions).

"I can think of nothing finer than to receive this kind of gift from one of our own," said San Francisco State President Robert A. Corrigan. "Professor Schaze exemplifies the dedication to teaching that this University values. His gift will extend the influence he has had on the College of Business by making us more competitive in our search for first-rate business faculty who, like him, value interaction with their students, as well as scholarly research."

Part of the gift will also go towards creating an executive conference room for the college. Room 202 of the Business building will be upgraded with new furnishings and added multimedia features so that faculty and students have a state of the art facility in which to give scholarly presentations and meet with area business leaders. It will be renamed the Professor Vincent Schaze Conference Room in honor of its benefactor.

With more than 5,000 students and 120 faculty members, San Francisco State University's College of Business is one of the largest in California.